A Friendly Epistle to Mrs. Fry, in Newgate

“Sermons in stones.”--As You Like It.“Out! out! damned spot!”--Macbeth.

I like you, Mrs. Fry! I like your name!It speaks the very warmth you feel in pressingIn daily act round Charity’s great flame--I like the crisp brown way you have of dressing,Good Mrs. Fry! I like the placid claimYou make to Christianity,--professingLove, and good works--of course you buy of Barton,Beside the young fry’s bookseller, Friend Darton!

I like, good Mrs. Fry, your brethren mute--Those serious, solemn gentlemen that sport--I should have said, that wear, the sober suitShaped like a court dress--but for heaven’s court.I like your sisters too,--sweet Rachel’s fruit--Protestant nuns! I like their stiff supportOf virtue--and I like to see them cladWith such a difference--just like good from bad!

I like the sober colours--not the wet;Those gaudy manufactures of the rainbow--Green, orange, crimson, purple, violet--In which the fair, the flirting, and the vain, go--The others are a chaste, severer set,In which the good, the pious, and the plain, go--They’re moral standards, to know Christians by--In short, they are your colours, Mrs. Fry!

As for the naughty tinges of the prism--Crimson’s the cruel uniform of war--Blue--hue of brimstone! minds no catechism;And green is young and gay--not noted forGoodness, or gravity, or quietism,Till it is saddened down to tea-green, orOlive--and purple’s given to wine, I guess;And yellow is a convict by its dress!

They’re all the devil’s liveries, that menAnd women wear in servitude to sin--But how will they come off; poor motleys, whenSin’s wages are paid down, and they stand inThe Evil presence? You and I know, thenHow all the party colours will beginTo part--the Pittite hues will sadden there,Whereas the Foxite shades will all show fair!

Witness their goodly labours one by one!Russet makes garments for the needy poor--Dove-colour preaches love to all--and dunCalls every day at Charity’s street-door--Brown studies scripture, and bids woman shunAll gaudy furnishing--olive doth pourOil into wounds: and drab and slate supplyScholar and book in Newgate, Mrs. Fry!

Well! Heaven forbid that I should discommendThe gratis, charitable, jail-endeavour!When all persuasions in your praises blend--The Methodist’s creed and cry are, Fry for ever!No--I will be your friend--and, like a friend,Point out your very worst defect--Nay, neverStart at that word!--But I must ask you whyYou keep your school in Newgate, Mrs. Fry?

Too well I know the price our mother EvePaid for her schooling: but must all her daughtersCommit a petty larceny, and thieve--Pay down a crime for “entrance” to your “quarters?”Your classes may increase, but I must grieveOver your pupils at their bread-and-waters!Oh, tho’ it cost you rent--(and rooms run high!)Keep your school out of Newgate, Mrs. Fry!

O save the vulgar soul before it’s spoiled!Set up your mounted sign without the gate--And there inform the mind before ’tis soiled!’Tis sorry writing on a greasy slate!Nay, if you would not have your labours foiled,Take it inclining tow’rds a virtuous state,Not prostrate and laid flat--else, woman meek!The upright pencil will but hop and shriek!

Ah, who can tell how hard it is to drainThe evil spirit from the heart it preys in,--To bring sobriety to life again,Choked with the vile Anacreontic raisin,--To wash Black Betty when her black’s ingrain,--To stick a moral lacquer on Moll Brazen,Of Suky Tawdry’s habits to deprive her;To tame the wild-fowl-ways of Jenny Diver!

Ah, who can tell how hard it is to teachMiss Nancy Dawson on her bed of straw--To make Long Sal sew up the endless breachShe made in manners--to write heaven’s own lawOn hearts of granite.--Nay, how hard to preach,In cells, that are not memory’s--to drawThe moral thread, through the immoral eyeOf blunt Whitechapel natures, Mrs. Fry!

In vain you teach them baby-work within:’Tis but a clumsy botchery of crime;’Tis but a tedious darning of old sin--Come out yourself, and stitch up souls in time--It is too late for scouring to beginWhen virtue’s ravelled out, when all the primeIs worn away, and nothing sound remains;You’ll fret the fabric out before the stains!

I like your chocolate, good Mrs. Fry!I like your cookery in every way;I like your shrove-tide service and supply;

I like to hear your sweet Pandeans play;I like the pity in your full-brimmed eye;I like your carriage, and your silken grey,Your dove-like habits, and your silent preaching;But I don’t like your Newgatory teaching.

Come out of Newgate, Mrs. Fry! RepairAbroad, and find your pupils in the streets.O, come abroad into the wholesome air,And take your moral place, before Sin seatsHer wicked self in the Professor’s chair.Suppose some morals raw! the true receipt’sTo dress them in the pan, but do not tryTo cook them in the fire, good Mrs. Fry!

Put on your decent bonnet, and come out!Good lack! the ancients did not set up schoolsIn jail--but at the Porch! hinting, no doubt,That Vice should have a lesson in the rulesBefore ’twas whipt by law.--O come about,Good Mrs. Fry! and set up forms and stoolsAll down the Old Bailey, and thro’ Newgate-street,But not in Mr. Wontner’s proper seat!

Teach Lady Barrymore, if, teaching, youThat peerless Peeress can absolve from dolour;Teach her it is not virtue to pursueRuin of blue, or any other colour;Teach her it is not Virtue’s crown to rue,Month after month, the unpaid drunken dollar;Teach her that “flooring Charleys” is a gameUnworthy one that bears a Christian name.

O come and teach our children--that ar’n’t ours--That heaven’s straight pathway is a narrow way,Not Broad St. Giles’s, where fierce Sin devoursChildren, like Time--or rather they both preyOn youth together--meanwhile Newgate low’rsEv’n like a black cloud at the close of day,To shut them out from any more blue sky:Think of these hopeless wretches, Mrs. Fry!

You are not nice--go into their retreats,And make them Quakers, if you will.--’Twere bestThey wore straight collars, and their shirts sans pleats;That they had hats with brims,--that they were drestIn garbs without lappels--than shame the streetsWith so much raggedness.--You may investMuch cash this way--but it will cost its price,To give a good, round, real cheque to Vice!

In brief,--Oh teach the child its moral rote,Not in the way from which ’twill not depart,--But out--out--out! Oh, bid it walk remote!And if the skies are closed against the smart,Ev’n let him wear the single-breasted coat,For that ensureth singleness of heart.--Do what you will, his every want supply,Keep him--but out of Newgate, Mrs. Fry!